


The Immortality Escape

by LialeeEderian



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: A fix it, Ends on a Cliffhanger I may or may not have plans to continue on from., Gen, I have plans, I mean, Maybe - Freeform, Percy Breaks Rules, Percy Fixes Everything before he was even supposed to exist, Percy is a God, Sally is Awesome, The god of friendship and loyalty, but - Freeform, but not really, for Percy himself, just putting it out there, mentions of the norse and egyptian pantheons because Percy breaks Rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LialeeEderian/pseuds/LialeeEderian
Summary: Percy Jackson is born too early, and when he is asked, he accepts.
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Percy Jackson & Demigods, Percy Jackson & Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson & The Minor Gods, Percy Jackson & The Olympians
Comments: 6
Kudos: 318





	The Immortality Escape

Perseus Jackson was born too early, and when he was offered godhood, he accepted.

He was inaugurated the god of friendship and loyalty, a light of pure trust among beings near incapable of it.

He accepted godhood, and years passed. His mother passed. His friends passed.

His new family did not.

But there was a heaviness in his heart that never disappeared.

He was not meant to be a god, he realized much too late. He was not meant to be one and he didn’t _want_ to be one, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had been granted godhood and now he had to live with an immortal family he couldn’t see as more than unruly fools. Most of them, at least.

Some decades, he spent with his father, thousands of miles under the sea. He befriended the creatures that corralled Poseidon’s castle, those who loathed coming near it, and those who would sooner see it destroyed. He met Triton and Amphitrite, survived their scorn past two hundred years, then earned their friendship and love. (Amphitrite was a mother, but she would never replace his.)

Other years he spent on land, fraternizing with gods and men alike, but never coming close enough. Other gods had children, demigods strong enough to embroil the world in war, strong enough to bring gods to their knees. He didn’t. He befriended them, instead. He valued strength in friends over strength in power. But he was the god of friendship – that was a given.

And yet, no one could underestimate him. His enemies cowered under his glare. Traitors wondered if they would live to see another day. Nemesis pondered which friendship would be precious enough in its broken form that she would get to work with him again.

It was not long before his loyalty started to fracture.

Loyalty was good and well on its own, but betrayal upon betrayal made it hard to hold on. Especially when it came from friends; children of gods, gods themselves, spirits of the world who revealed themselves to play with the fates of mortals.

Friendship and loyalty. Betrayals challenged both.

But he remembered the smile his mother used to give him before he set out on a quest when he used to be mortal. He remembered her urging for justice, for truth, for life. He remembered her, and he endured.

He stepped up from the prison he had made out of his own powers.

His were friendship and loyalty, but true friendship begot true loyalty and choices of betrayal garnered neither.

He stood up and his prison became his throne. He stood up and his brothers- and sisters-in-arms stood up with him.

He became a beacon of trust, of justice, of life – brighter than any god dared to shine.

They began calling him Perseus the just, the god of trust. It was embarrassing – mostly because it rhymed, and partly because Apollo had come up with it and it had spread like wildfire. Hermes had teased him endlessly. So had Triton.

Amphitrite and Poseidon had just smiled.

Percy withered a little more.

Perseus, the god who could win all hearts, they called him.

He shook his head and walked away. If he could win all hearts, why hadn’t he won his own?

A century passed.

Of the gods, trust was a commodity, but one he deemed a necessity.

Artemis gave him grudging acceptance. Years later, she gave him respect she had given to only one other man.

Aphrodite tried to woo him but turned when he frowned. He had sadness in his heart in the place of the love she wanted to inspire. She would say, later, that he wasn’t her type. He would hum and agree while she would seethe inside. She was the goddess of love! She ought to be able to entice any man!

Athena loathed him because she loathed Poseidon. She glared at him because he would make light of learning, laugh at the stupidest jokes, smile at the dumbest of requests.  
But he became friends with her progeny, and saving Athena’s children was a great boon to the goddess herself.

Hades was harder to crack. He was alone. He had always been alone, separated from his brothers not by choice but by draw. He was grouchy and unkind – no Olympian was wanted! And yet, Percy was no Olympian. He had been to the underworld on quests as a demigod. He had been with a friend, a daughter of Hades. He had arrived, and he had lived, and he had impressed.

His friendship with Persephone boomed when he brought her gifts from all around the world. She could grow all kinds of flowers, but flowers were still her life and she could not grow them all in the underworld.

Beneath Persephone’s loving nudge and Percy’s grin, Hades caved.

Percy came and went as he pleased.

Demeter was irked at him for a century for that.

Apollo and Hermes were already his friends, and their friendships only grew stronger.

Zeus tolerated him.

Hera nodded at him in the midst of the meetings they often called.

Hephaestus cared for no more than his own inventions.

Ares… well, Percy himself did not care for him, so what claim did he have to judge him? Other than the training sessions they held every year.  
Half the time, Percy won.  
Ares hated him for that.

Hestia, the only goddess left of the Olympians – the last Olympian herself. She was a goddess in every meaning of the words, and she was the closest to how Percy’s real mother had been. She was the closest to benevolence, to godhood, to compassion and love, and she was Percy’s favorite. Percy adored her, and she adored him, a child who paid attention to her. A child who did not diminish the power of the hearth. A child who was better, in nearly every way.

Half the gods did not like Percy. Half the gods adored him.

But he didn’t care anymore. Not at all.

One day, he ended up drifting to the island of Ogygia. Calypso was beautiful, but his heart was empty. And yet… Calypso needed help. She deserved help, and when had he ever been one to deny it of his friends? And make no mistake, Calypso became a friend.

He stormed Olympus and forced Zeus to oblige.

Zeus came to hate him for that. Percy didn’t care. Poseidon and Hades shared a first laugh together that wasn’t weighed down by arguments and uncertainties.

Calypso stepped off her island with a gasp and a sob. She had never imagined she would be free.

Percy grinned at her and told her to travel the world.

She decided to listen.

He didn’t see her for a long, long while after that.

Another century crawled by.

Life was cruel. Immortality was cruel. Gods could breed heirs and lose them in a blink of a lifetime. They mourned, but they moved on, to more heirs. More demigods.

Percy couldn’t. A life? Snuffed out before his own? Two?

He couldn’t bear the thought and wouldn’t bear its truth.

So he didn’t. He lived as he did a demigod, enamored with friends and with no dream for a family.

Percy found himself at camp half blood.

He had no children there (he had no children anywhere) so the loophole of sacred and stupid ancient laws allowed his interference. Sort of.

He would have gone anyway.

He spent a few decades there, mourned the many dead, celebrate the new. He commiserated often, with Chiron, a sharer in his wretched immortality.

He did everything, and he watched. He watched as bright children arrived and doomed children left. He watching cheer broken down to misery and regret. He watched neglect and failure eat away at the hearts of the demigods. Some were unclaimed. Others the children of minor gods and no cabin to call their own. Even others, few in number but great in power, the furious children of Hades, children of a major god – one of the greatest three – and yet denied a hope at the only place safe for demigods of their heritage.

He saw more. Fury and malice clawing at the minds of burdened children. Half-bloods leaving in the middle of the night.

He saw them, and he mourned, for yet more were lost to the desperate laws the immortals lived by.

He growled deep in his throat, ignored Chiron’s low warning that did less to threaten him than a tickle on his back, and marched, once again, to Olympus. This once, he roared, challenging the king of the gods to a fight.

Zeus’s ego demanded he win.

Percy’s skill ensured _he_ did.

It was not as hard as fighting a god when he had been a demigod two lifetimes ago. It was easier. They were both immortals, and Percy didn’t have to hold back.

His sword at Zeus’s throat was a shock and he demanded a favor for the seat of the king. Zeus grudgingly agreed, stating his vow on the river Styx.

Percy nodded and called for a better life for the demigods, a better life for the minor gods. He called for the reformation of camp half blood, for the help and loyalty they so desperately needed.

Zeus had already promised, and the river Styx forced his hand.

The demigods prayed in awe to the only god they owed.

So much time later, when his bones ached and his heart wept, he fixed his gait and years of isolation to go back to the mortal world. He was well over five hundred and the world had changed long beyond his comprehension.

He went back to the mortal world and crossed a bridge he was never meant to cross.

The Egyptian and Norse Pantheons were treasure troves of freedom, help, life. They revived him, if only slightly, and his search led him to Thoth and his vast fountains of knowledge. He spoke of the Norse, of their apple of immortality.

… then he spoke of its counterpart, guarded by the vicious claws of Hel, daughter of Loki, bringer of Ragnarök.

Percy wasted no time.

Hel’s realm was cold and forbidding. It was chaotic beyond the underworld, and somehow, more orderly. There was a system beyond his understanding, but Percy cared not what it was. He went straight to Hel, amused by his jaunt through her realm, and demanded his salvation.

She raised an eyebrow and told him no one in existence had yet asked for it.

He answered he would be the first.

Hel didn’t care for rules. She grinned and gave him the fruit.

* * *

He returned to the mortal world. To the now bustling city of New York. It was one of the busiest cities in the world, and it felt like the perfect place to disappear – right under the noses of the Greek gods.

He stared at the black apple in his hands and his stomach refused to churn. It, too, had had enough of ambrosia and nectar.

He inhaled deeply, his life flashing before his eyes again, crawling with memories he would not forget, even in his immortality. His godhood called to him, a last plea.

He bit into the apple.


End file.
